


you open always petal by petal

by withkissesfour



Category: Janet King (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:26:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7264141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withkissesfour/pseuds/withkissesfour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janet’s face brightens, now, as Bianca holds her forefinger over the buzzer, says 'come on up', casual as possible, like she hasn’t wanted this for weeks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you open always petal by petal

Janet peers up at her from the monitor - her long neck craning towards the camera and her face (pixelated, gorgeous) set in an uncertain smile. The doorbell is high-pitched, drowns out the soft tones of daytime television, works away at her fraying nerves and tired head. It drags her, unwilling, from her lengthy midday slumber - the large thin blanket still held firm around her shoulders - and persists. _Let her in,_ it screeches, as her hand hovers over the intercom, hesitant. _Let her in._

It’s been a month, and all she’s wanted to do is see Janet. 

She’s been on leave for three weeks, slow days punctuated by therapy sessions and overzealous reporters. Andy comes over, brings beer, brings an appallingly bad batch of homemade brownies, tells her to look after herself, tells her to stop watching the news; and it takes every ounce of self-restraint not to ask him about her.  It takes every method of distraction not to text her, call her, knock on her door ( _are you okay?_ she’d say, or  _i’m sorry,_ or _i love you_.) Instead she tucks her phone deep behind a pile of cushions on the couch. She orders takeout and watches endless reruns of _Stingers_. She chokes down the horrendous batch of brownies, a hefty dollop of cream on top, forces a smile in the direction of Andy’s kind and hopeful face. 

    ‘She’ll call’, he says, one day, when he turns to leave, giving her arm a gentle squeeze, ‘she just needs time’.

Janet’s face brightens, now, as Bianca holds her forefinger over the buzzer, says _come on up,_ casual as possible,like she hasn’t wanted this for weeks.  _Fourth floor, second on the right_ , she directs, and measures the time it would take Janet to reach her door - as she puts the room to rights, wondering if she’s made a mistake. She knew it was for the best to leave her alone, knew Janet needed breathing space. But she wonders - as she throws open the curtains and kicks empty pizza boxes towards the bin, and throws a cardigan haphazardly over thin pyjamas - whether she’s afraid. What if she leaves her? What if she’s done? What if she tells her it means nothing - this fragile thing between them?

- 

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your hair down’, is the fourth thing she says, after _hi_ and _come in_ and _do you want a beer_? 

Janet’s shakes her hair around her head then, tangles a finger around a wisp of golden hair that sits cropped around her shoulders, chuckles nervously. They’re jittery around each other. 

‘Even after we-’, Bianca begins, then stops herself, the beer slopping over the side of the bottle, her cheeks turning red. ‘Well, the worst I’ve seen is a dishevelled ponytail’. 

‘I want you to live with me’, is the third thing Janet says, after _hey_ and _did i wake you?_  She’s sitting on the sofa, hands flexing around the beer bottle, knees close to bumping against Bianca, who has perched on the edge of the coffee table. She’d sat for a while in silence, tugging at her thin blouse, brow furrowed and mouth opening and closing, false starts to a conversation. She’d reached out her hand once or twice, went to tangle her slender fingers in Bianca’s, and pulled back, picked at the loose fabric at the knee of her jeans instead (Bianca’s never seen her in jeans), and her eyes are earnest. ‘For a while? If you like?’

There’s a smile burgeoning, in the twitch of muscles around Bianca’s mouth. There’s a breathy sigh of relief, rising from her chest, buried in her throat by disbelief. There’s a _yes_ (unqualified) tangled in her tongue, and all she can do is duck her head, choke out a _why?_

‘Well, I think the twins would feel safer’, she starts, and shuffles forward, takes one of Bianca’s hands with hers. Her brow is furrowed, and her fingers tremble, and her voice is soft, cracked. 

‘And I don’t want _her_ to ruin my life - _our_ lives’, she says, and Bianca moves her other hand over Janet’s, steadies it. ‘You and me had a good thing going, you know? She already took Ash from me, I don’t want her to take you too’. 

Bianca moves from the coffee table then, crouches on pyjama-ed knees and shuffles forward - so that she’s kneeling between Janet’s slightly parted legs, one hand on her thigh and the other curling around the nape of her neck (tangling in the fine strands of blonde against the base of her skull) and pulling her forwards so she can kiss her, soft, quick, lips and cheeks and forehead, the place below her right ear and the spot beside her left eye, where tears form.

‘Is that a yes, then?’

Bianca chuckles, presses a firmer kiss to her smiling lips (nose against her nose), mumbles a _yes_ into her happy mouth. 

-

They don’t make it to the bedroom. They don’t even make an effort to. They end up tangled, naked body around naked body, on the carpet of her living room - surrounded by an assortment of pillows and covered with the large blanket. Janet’s blouse is flung over the arm of the couch, her shoes somewhere under it, and Bianca’s pyjamas lie in a piled heap near the television - playing some courtroom drama, the dialogue soft and low. 

‘Were you asleep, when I rang?’ Janet asks, nodding to the pyjamas before kissing a lazy path down her body, around her torso, over her tattoo - laughing an apology against the soft small swell of Bianca's stomach when she mumbles  _mmhm._

‘I like your house’, Janet says, her chin resting on Bianca’s stomach, her nails following the curve of her body, tracing up and down her sides (up and down, up and down) from breast to hip.

‘I like yours better’, she replies, back arching and hand gripping blindly at carpet when Janet moves, murmurs _i’m okay with that_ against her right thigh, her left thigh, and the spaces in between.

- 

It’s dark, by the time Janet leaves.

She’d ordered pizza, when Janet’s stomach began to growl, and they’d eaten it crosslegged on the floor (a large jumper, stolen from Bianca’s wardrobe, thrown over Janet’s frame), and they found it easier to talk about the weeks before (the weeks _after_ ) around a mouth full of pepperoni. 

She’d stumbled into the kitchen, bed socks slippery on the tile, when Janet complained about still being hungry. Bianca’s not much of a cook, and she’s barely at home, so the fridge is full of beer, and day old milk, and a half-eaten batch of brownies. 

Bianca brewed her a pot of coffee, black and strong, as she choked down a bite of the brownie - as she whacked at Bianca’s leg under the table.

‘You were right about these’, she garbled, washing it down with a large gulp of the steaming coffee, long legs dangling from the tall bar stools on the other side of her kitchen bench. 

‘Keep it’, Bianca had said, nodding towards her large blue jumper, as Janet had begun to pull it off, one shoe on and her jeans unbuttoned around her waist. _Keep it_ , she had said, moving forward, fastening the button on the jeans, and smoothing down the fabric of her jumper (and it’ll smell like Janet now). 

So it’s dark, by the time Janet leaves - kisses her at the door and tells her she’ll see her tomorrow. Her hair sits, dishevelled, around her shoulders, and the promise dances on her lips, and her mouth tastes like coffee. 


End file.
